Two new European coordinators for the
trans-European transport networks

The Commission, on a proposal from Vice-President
Barrot, has just appointed two new European coordinators in the trans-European
transport networks sector: Mrs Karla Peijs for inland waterways and Mr Luis
Valente de Oliveira for the "motorways of the sea". These coordinators will
facilitate the dialogue between the Member States concerned so as to synchronise
the work and the financing plans better. "These projects are essential for
developing a sustainable transport policy, but they also have considerable
implementation problems to tackle: the choice of these two well-known
personalities in the transport world will guarantee success", said Mr Barrot.

The Commission had already adopted, on 20 July 2005, a decision on the
designation of six European coordinators to facilitate the coordinated
implementation of certain priority projects between Member States. The European
coordinators have become reference figures and their work has had a positive
impact on these projects.

Encouraged by this successful experience, Vice-President Barrot has proposed
to the Commission to designate two new coordinators: Mrs Karla Peijs for inland
waterways and Mr Luis Valente de Oliveira for the "motorways of the sea".

Mrs Karla Peijs was the Dutch Minister of Transport from 2003 to 2006.
Before that, between 1989 and 2003 she was a Member of the European Parliament.
She is now going to be in charge, in particular, of priority projects 18
("Rhine/Meuse-Main-Danube") and 30 ("Inland waterway Seine-Scheldt"). These two
projects are essential to improving the cohesion of the trans-European inland
waterway network and making this mode of transport more competitive. The first
concerns the removal of several bottlenecks which are severely restricting the
efficiency of the Rhine-Main-Danube route but at the same time are in sensitive
natural environments. The second aims in particular to fill an important gap in
the network by connecting the North Sea ports with the Paris Basin.

Mr Luis Valente de Oliveira has performed a number of roles in the
Portuguese Government in recent years, having been, in particular, Minister for
Regional Planning and Administration from 1985 to 1995 and Minister for Public
Works, Transport and Housing from 2002 to 2003. Developing the "motorways of the
sea", now to be his responsibility, is intended to ease the modal shift in goods
transport from road to sea. It consists in setting up regular high-quality
maritime connections between different European Union seaports, to form a
fully-integrated multimodal chain which will overcome road transport bottlenecks
while at the same time better integrating the EU's outlying regions and
islands.